Author Archive for Maggie Ostara

This last weekend I succumbed to the stomach flu my daughter had had the week before. As I was taking a salt bath this evening, under a bright full moon in Leo, I heard the voice of my inner wisdom quiet yet urgent in desire for my attention.

“When the storm is strong, even the strongest of trees lose limbs, even as the great pine did on your lane just weeks ago. The branches that are cracked and spent give way in the wind, yet the trunk remains rooted and most of the branches do more than survive. They are cleansed.

“So it is with many things in life. The turmoil comes and the limbs are tested. Some fall away while others remain and become even stronger for the testing. Over time, new growth may rise in the gap created by what fell away.”

As I received this message down into my body, I thought of how my business has evolved over the years (the many years now), with branches falling away sometimes because of storms, for others because their time was complete. And how over time many new sprouts have emerged and grown into new branches, while other never grew to fruition.

Now as my relationship with my husband transitions, one limb that was strong falls away but the trunk, the roots, and many of the branches remain. And in the gap where the old falls away, come springtime, and the right conditions, new life will emerge.

This is the blessing Imbloc brought me this year, in the clarity after the storm of the illness.

I share my story with you today with a wish and blessing that you let go of that which is cracked and spent while you cherish the trunk, the roots, and the branches that remain.

Imbolc, the Gaelic festival of the beginning of springtime, urges us to also have faith in the sprouting of new buds that may not yet be visible to your eye – but if you pay attention – you can feel with your heart.

May you feel the sprout stirring within you as you plant the seed for what you wish for this year.

I would love to hear what is stirring for you and what you are planting seeds for.

Have you noticed that expectations dramatically influence your experience? Yep, they sure do. I am glad I have finally really learned this. You know why? Otherwise I could be really unhappy right now.

My daughter has had the flu for more than a week now – almost all of our holidays so far, and it looks like it will extend through this week as well. I could allow this to annoy me, or depress me, or outrage me. But instead I am rolling with it pretty well. Mostly I feel bad for her, she does not feel well at all. I am actually really grateful to have had the time to be with her without my own stress, which is harder when I’m in my normal work mode.

I know that she will emerge from this changed. This is always what happens after days of fever. Rudolf Steiner (creator of Waldorf Education and anthroposophical medicine) said that fevers are the way the soul burns its way into the body, incarnating more fully into the physical realm. As hard as it is for her, and for me, I’ve seen the way this experience propels her development.

We are having a cold snap, which for us means the 40s and maybe a freeze at night. (I know, some of you are laughing.) So we’ve got the wood stove fired up around the clock. We still have our tree up – which is actually my favorite part of the season, so I leave it up until it’s shedding so many needles I can’t stand it any more. We have cup after cup of tea – and the cat is so happy we are home after being gone for a week that she climbs into everyone’s lap.

Life is good, even with the challenges.
Enjoy every moment and love your beloveds deeply.

“The only constant is change.” I am sure you’ve heard that before, and in this time of accelerating change this is more true than ever before.

Today marks the end of the calendar year of 2014 and, right after the Winter Solstice, we stand on the threshold of a new year emerging.

This is the end of an era in my own life.

Every major aspect of my life is changing. I’ve seen and felt it coming. So many different emotions: I’ve fought it, resigned myself to it, prayed for support and resolution.

As I relaxed my vice-grip on what was, I received the unexpected blessings of angels, found a place of peace, and now . . .

. . . I feel the edges of a new era, excitement stirs within me, and I feel beckoned forward.

The future is calling me. Now I can hear it . . . and the sound is sweet.

This evening I will take my writings that review 2014 – the surprises, disappointments, yes and even the accomplishments – and I will burn them ritually to release this era.

I will take with me only the learnings. The harvest. And compost everything else.

I encourage you to do the same for yourself, and your year.

Keep the learnings – compost the rest.

Come next year, I will be writing to you less frequently and in a different format. I will experiment with the form and ways in which I reach out – but do not worry, I will not disappear – I am only transforming . . .

Time for a new painting . . . I will share her with you when it’s time.

Today I am in Seattle with my parents. I found us a place to stay on airbnb very near the neighborhood where I grew up in Seattle. I feel a deep familiarity with the architecture and hills – and the grey sky and dampness. It’s not really true that it rains so much in Seattle. Most of the rain drops off at the rainforest on the other side of the Olympic Mountains long before those clouds make their way to Seattle. But what you do have are grey days, particularly in the wintertime, and damp. It’s like it’s in my bones!

I wish you many blessings for however you are spending your holiday season – lighting candles, planting seeds, giving gifts, making special foods, sharing blessings. For those of us in the northern hemisphere, being intentional and grateful has been a way of getting through long nights and cold days for millennia. While electricity has changed our experience a lot, these traditions continue to bring us together, and fortify us for the year ahead.

Please remember to acknowledge and appreciate yourself – because you matter. You are important – and you chose to be born here on planet earth at this special time to make your contribution. You are utterly unique in all time and space, and I love and appreciate who you are. Blessings to you!

Here between Winter Solstice and the end of the calendar year, you may be reflecting on the year gone by. This is a great practice as you complete this cycle, and as a foundation for the one now unfolding.

But if you are like most people, you are more highly attuned to the things you think you didn’t do well, than you are to the things you learned, let go of, or accomplished.

Those inner nay-sayers can be vicious, counting what you haven’t done, or pointing out what you did incorrectly, or just plain driving you with the mantra: it’s never enough, or never good enough. (I know this can be really difficult for me – and I wonder, who IS that saying that in my head?)

I find myself often reminding my clients to stop, step back, and notice how well they’re doing. “Appreciate what you’ve done,” I’ll exclaim, “pay attention to all you’ve accomplished. Don’t compare yourself to other people. Compare yourself to where you were six months ago, or a year ago—really it’s remarkable.”

It’s great to have an excellent work ethic, and high standards. These absolutely will contribute significantly to creating a successful business. But they are not helpful if they become ways to beat up on yourself. Not helpful at all.

I recently learned the scientific reason for this. (I have all kinds of metaphysical and psychological reasons, but this scientific one is cool.)

It’s called the Inverse Zeno Effect. According to Kim Marcille, the Inverse Zeno Effect is a phenomenon in which processes can be slowed down or accelerated depending upon how you measure them. How you measure them, and how frequently, will determine what the Zeno effect is.

Basically what this means is this: if you frequently measure what you haven’t done, or what you think you haven’t done well or correctly—you will put the brakes on your success. But if you frequently measure even the smallest accomplishments, you will speed up the process toward your success. Even better, says Kim, wrap your vision around how you praise your actions, and you will amplify the effect even more.

So this year, as you reflect on what you’ve done, use the Inverse Zeno effect to your advantage. Like this:

Step One:Make a list of everything you did to educate yourself about your business, and what you did to build your business. Start with the big things, and work down to the smaller things. Really take the time—a few hours maybe—to go back through your year, and map out your efforts and your accomplishments.

My experience tells me that you have probably either forgotten, neglected, or discounted much of what you did because it didn’t create the direct result that you hoped it would, or because your expectations were not informed by enough understanding about how business actually works.

~ > As one of my mentors, David Neagle, says: “You have to remember that most things you do in business don’t work. That’s why persistence is so important.”

Everything is an experiment and a test, even when you’re working with proven models. So it’s important not to be too hard on yourself while you’re learning what works for you.

Step Two:Take your list and frame it with statements about how your actions helped to promote your vision and purpose for your business. Here are a few examples:

You wrote a blog article once a week. Frame it like this: In 2014 I wrote an article in my blog every week, which helped me to refine my message, identify my tribe, and reach out and provide value to my people.

You attended 1-2 events per month in the last quarter of 2014 to meet new people and expand your network. Frame it like this: Over the last three months, I reached out to new people, developed new relationships, and now have a broader network to work with in 2015.

You filled your practice each week with clients. Frame it like this: In 2014 I created a strong foundation for my business with regular clients, and now I’m well positioned to leverage my expertise for greater rewards and income in 2015.

Step Three:Step back, review your list, and acknowledge yourself for what you did do. No matter how few or how small, focus on what you did do, and particularly on what you enjoyed and appreciate. Discipline yourself to focus on what’s positive, not on the negative. B r e a t h e and take it in. Really take it in.

Step Four: Develop a frequent practice—you can start with once a week, then build up to once a business day—of accounting for what you accomplished. Don’t wait until the end of the year to add it all up! You will accelerate your results if you frequently note your actions, and frame them as accomplishments.

For example, for today, I’m going to write:Today I wrote an article for my Tribe about how appreciating yourself is good for your business. This article helped me stayed focused on what really matters, enables me to provide value to my people, and helps promote my overall purpose of upliftment through soul-inspired business development. Ah, that feels good just to write and read it.

Your Turn! List out at least one of your accomplishments from 2014 that you want to celebrate and post it on my Facebook profile page so I can celebrate with you! The Inverse Zeno Effect is magnified even more when you share with others. Go here to post: www.Facebook.com/maggieostara

Rain, rain, and more rain! With enough wind thrown in that we’ve had several trees down or damaged. Yesterday we had a crew here taking down damaged limbs that were hanging over the lane where we live (and they did that in the rain, too!). And, we love the rain here in California. After a year of virtually no rain at all, and a pretty dry fall, we are finally getting real downpours and accumulating inches, which I hope will begin to fill the reservoirs deep down that we depend on over the rest of the year. That’s where we draw our well water from, for example. We also are getting snow in the Sierras so that will help with water being available next spring and summer.

Why should you care? Well, if you live in the United States, chances are a portion (sometimes a BIG portion) of your food comes from California. And for that we need water.

It might seem that I am over emphasizing rain and water – and yet water is one of the key resources and issues of our times. I LOVE water in all its forms. I relish, crave, enjoy, cherish, and delight in water.

Blessings to you as we head more into the holiday season of Holy Days, which ever you celebrate, however you celebrate them. Among traditions all over the world, this time is sacred and potent. I raise my tea mug, which later will be a wine glass, to you and yours for letting in the blessings that are yours already. Take a moment to count your abundance, and let in all that you have received, all that you love and cherish, and how deeply, deeply you are loved and supported.

Diving to the New Moon on the Winter Solstice in just a few days, a potent portal of energy provides maximum opportunity for identifying the shadow inside that has held you back, and the LIGHT that is returning.

This has been a favorite tweet and update of mine on Twitter and Facebook. Because in truth your LIGHT is your essence, your unique energy signature. And when you allow it to shine as brightly as it can, you cast a brilliant radiance over all you come into contact with—and far beyond your physical presence. That is deeply nourishing to us all.

Here at the Shift of the Ages—and yes we are right in it now—YOURLIGHT is more significant than ever. We are emerging from centuries and millennia of violence and persecution, within each of us, between and among us. This is a tremendously important time in which to be alive ~ and you willingly, even deLIGHTfully decided to be here now. You knew, on the Soul Level, what an honor it is, to contribute to the Return of LIGHT.

This Winter Solstice calls to you to return YOUR Light to its fullest capacity. No doubt you, like the rest of us, learned to hide your light out of a desire to be safe. You put a bushel over your head in an effort to not be seen. That bushel does not hide you, nor does it diminish your LIGHT in any significant way. But it does create a veil or a barrier between you and others, and between you and your deepest, most radiant self.

In Ancient Rome, Winter Solstice is celebrated as Saturnalia, in honor of Saturn. Saturn is a powerful god who can be a great ally or terrible master. Visionary Activist Astrologer, Caroline Casey exhorts us to use the power of Saturn to step into our own authority, and become authors of our lives. Owning your own authority assists you in developing your personal Sovereignty—your ability to command your life-force and LIGHT-force at will—and thereby create your life as you will.

LIGHT is the finest, most powerful substance in the Universe. It is that from which all things are made, the first movement from the great unmanifest into the manifest world. LIGHT stands at the ready to be commanded by you, to take shape at your bidding, to become that which you focus on. You can tremendous creative power. Will you use this law for or against yourself?

Step into your LIGHT. Let it nourish you first. Close your eyes, go inside, and tune in to the flame at the core of your BEING. Fan the flame of this light with your breath, breathing deeply and purposefully. Feel the light spread out into the cells of your body, energizing all of your biological systems, increasing your vitality. Feel the light expand even more to a cocoon of LIGHT all around you. Open to a down pouring of LIGHT from all directions. Feel yourself expand as the LIGHT grows within and outside of you.

Let the veil fall, let your LIGHT shine out, let yourself be nourished by the LIGHT all around you. As you step into this New Year, this New World now unfolding, give the gift of your LIGHT.

I’ve been really excited about a new approach I am taking in my coaching program for next year. As a teacher of almost 30 years, I am super committed to the actual education of my students – what people really get out of my programs. What I’ve seen over the years is that people are at such different stages in their businesses, plus they have very different levels of engagement, different skill sets, and different levels of urgency. This creates enormous challenge for a teacher, who in a particular program is trying to meet students where they are at and take them through their next steps. The starting points are different, the next steps are different, and the pacing is different. That leads to a lot of diversity.

So for next year, I’ve created a program that is customized for every client – and it’s a really exciting and challenging task. Now that I have enough training materials (years worth) already created, I am focusing on customization and real coaching for each client, rather than on creating more and more training materials. This whole approach is requiring me to think in new ways about how to create our membership site, how to orient and set up clients, how to set up our retreat – all of it! I loved being stretched in this way, though sometimes I ask myself: “why do you always have to create something new and different?” But I know, that’s just my nature!

We are finally getting plenty of rain here in California – and in fact tomorrow we are due for a HUGE storm. So wish us luck through the high winds and inches of rain coming our way tomorrow. And we are going to be getting some of what other places have been experiencing the last few years!

You know it’s not surprising if you are. And you want to know why? It’s because that’s what you were probably programmed to do. It’s part of what most schools teach you. Fit in. Do the right thing. Follow the rules.

Now don’t get me wrong. I understand why schools teach that sort of thing. I was once an official educator myself (now I’m a renegade, but that’s a different story). I know how much easier it is to have a cooperative class where people pay attention and do what you tell them to do. I also know how that tends to kill creativity, innovation, and experimentation. I remember as a college professor doing what I could to get my students to think outside the box. I was at an Ivy League University and these were smart kids. And they were there because they had learned to play the game, do things the right way, and get the grades that landed them at that school.

And I kept pushing them to think differently. To challenge their assumptions. To see the world with new eyes. (I guess I’ve always been a renegade. . . ) And it was hard for them precisely because they were so well “educated.”

This shows up in your business as following what other people tell you to do. Now you want to do some of that because who wants to reinvent the wheel. But it’s different if the only thing you can focus on is trying to find the right marketing person who will tell you the right thing so you can get the results you want (i.e. the grade). And you keep looking around ‘cause the thing is, business requires creativity—not conformity. So you can’t find success in a formula, as much as you might like to. That really leads to mediocrity—can you see that?

And it feels safe, I know that. Stay with the crowd. Do what the others are doing. Heck I see it in myself sometimes (though the renegade keeps focusing her way out, no matter what). There’s something about following a path someone else has cut first.

You just have to ask yourself—is following the path supporting your innovation and self expression or leading you to mediocrity? Could go either way really. Doesn’t mediocrity in business just make you sigh? All those me, too, products? Someone innovates and a whole bunch of people try to follow.

You are better than that. You know that and I know that. You have something in you that no one else has. You are brilliant, vibrant, magnetic, inspiring, and trail-blazing in your own way. You are the expert in your own field. The field that you create. Not the one that some other teacher or master created before you. One in which you are at the center. You are the leader, teacher and healer around which your Village forms because they are drawn to you, to your tribe, the tribe as you create and co-create it.

Let this inspire rather than depress you. Take it as an invitation, not a burden. Begin to honor the truth that is within you. You are vast in experience, wisdom, knowledge and insight. As you acknowledge this and usher it forth you will expand even more into the fullness of your being. You will manifest your Soul Purpose and your Life Purpose together—your energy and your contribution—like you have never done before. Leave the security of mediocrity behind and become your Self.

As you do so you will emerge in the eyes of your clients, customers and students from the crowd of others who “do what you do.” You will no longer be defined by your modality or your school, but by your Soul Essence. Everything you do will be marked by your Soul Signature so that it is recognizably yours, and you will become known, respected and sought after like never before. Because there is nothing more magnetic than a person who has fully claimed, owned, embodied and honored all that they are.

Most self-employed people and entrepreneurs spend a majority of their time there.

You aren’t fully focused and being productive, and you aren’t fully relaxing, rejuvenating or having fun. You are partially working and musing about relaxing, or partially relaxing and musing about working.

That’s the grey zone. (I am so grateful to Eben Pagan for introducing me to this term. It’s just so good to have this named.)

The grey zone is part of the curse-side of the blessing and curse of technology. We now have a 24/7 society with electricity, wifi, and the internet making it possible to be “engaged” virtually around the clock.

So then you think you should be. You have your smart phone, which means that people can text you or Skype you or email you or Facebook you at any time. And you let them. Even when you are sitting down to dinner with your family, maybe, you have your phone there. Either that, or you are thinking about what you could or should be doing – or should or could have already done that day. Then maybe you pick up your phone, and text or skype or email someone, or take a photo and put it on Facebook – because you can.

This is insidious. The other side of it is that when you are working, you are thinking about how your daughter is doing with her friends at school, or what the best way is to get the lowest plane fare for your trip to see your parents, or what you’ll do for your workout this afternoon. So you jump over to Orbitz.com or Expedia.com and cruise for airfares, write yourself a list of what you need to pick up at the grocery store on your way home. Next thing you know, you forgot what you were working on, and have to move between the open windows on your computer to try to find your way back to what you were doing.

Sound familiar?

If you are spending your days behind your computer, or on your phone or tablet, yet not getting the clients you want, or making the money you want, in all likelihood, you are spending too much time in the grey zone.

What’s to be done? Excellent question!

First thing is to pay attention to your habits and notice what you are doing.

Then make a commitment to yourself to be more fully engaged in whatever it is you are doing, rather than falling into a trance. Freud said that we spend about 70% of our time in a waking-dream state. Interesting, right? So it takes focus and intention to be aware and engaged – to be present (as we say in modern spirituality).

Decide to spend two hours of focused time on the highest leverage activities in your business every day you are working. Make this your number one priority, and then carry this out consistently. (Of course you need to know what the highest leverage activities are for your business.)

Commit to stopping work at particular points during your day, and especially to fully disengage at the end of your day. Take breaks and train yourself to rest, exercise, meditate, play or otherwise rejuvenate yourself. You will not find this easy at first as your mind will wander back to your work. Consider this a self-care spiritual practice.

At the end of your day, create a transition for yourself where you clear your mind and disengage yourself from your work. Do something physical, have a reading, change your location, or write in your journal – something that ritualizes your end of workday. Then move away from your computer and your phone and focus on activities and a way of being that refreshes and honors yourself.

Full engagement with what is most important workwise. Full refreshment and rejuvenation. These are the keys to doubling your productivity and your time off.

Want to know more? Then join me for my no-cost webinar where I’ll go into all of this more deeply. You just need to RSVP.